Glazed

How to spell glazed

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce glazed

What does glazed mean?

1. adjectiveCovered with a smooth, shiny coating, as on pottery or food.
2. adjectiveShowing a dull, fixed, unfocused expression, especially in the eyes.
3. verbApplied a smooth, shiny coating to a surface, or fitted something with glass.

Glazed in a sentence

• adjective

  The bakery sells a row of glazed doughnuts every morning.

• adjective

  By the third hour of the meeting his eyes had gone completely glazed.

• verb

  The potter glazed each bowl before the final firing.

• adjective

  She admired the deep blue glazed tiles in the kitchen.

• adjective

  The exhausted student stared at the screen with a glazed look.

• verb

  The builder glazed the new conservatory last week.

Where does glazed come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is the past and adjectival form of the verb 'glaze', which grew directly out of the noun 'glass'. The root is the Old English glæs, a Germanic word for the transparent material, and in Middle English a variant spelling 'glas' gave rise to the verb 'glasen' or 'glasier', meaning 'to fit with glass' or 'to make glossy like glass'. Over time the verb settled into the spelling 'glaze', and adding the regular -ed ending produced 'glazed'. The sense widened from literally fitting windows with glass to coating pottery, food, or any surface with a shiny finish, and then figuratively to eyes that look dull and glassy. The spelling keeps the 'z' of glaze rather than the 's' of glass, which is the small trap for writers who half-remember the family link.

How the word is built

• glaze (from Old English glæs: glass)
• -ed (past tense / adjectival suffix)